What the hell are the Chakras anyway? Part II

            My understanding of the chakra system is essentially based on the above.  The chakras are fundamentally ways of localizing or projecting psychic contents onto parts of the body.  This appears to be something deep in our nature as human beings.  Across the world we humans feel with our ‘heart’, despite the inescapable fact that the physical heart is just a big blood-pumping muscle.  We may, like George Bush, know something in our ‘gut’.  When we try hard to remember something, we look ‘up’ even with out physical eyes, right to where we locate the 3^rd eye chakra.  In esoteric systems arising from every religious tradition there is the appearance of systems of the subtle body which link certain ideas and experiences to various ‘centers’ in the body.  More surprisingly, these centers often mean similar things, like the example of the physical heart being tied not only to impersonal compassion but to attachment to those we love.  We may say therefore that this facility of projection may be not learned but innate; that it archetypal.

            Does all this mean that our compassion is ‘in’ the physical heart in any real way?  Not necessarily, and here’s where our thinking can get bogged down.  Compassion is no more located ‘in’ the heart than the above woman’s daddy issues are ‘in’ her boyfriend, and no more than my love of my wife is ‘in’ my wife.  The compassion, the daddy issues, my love for my wife, these exist in the mind alone.  In the latter case, its experience is provoked by my seeing her, and in the others it is externalized and projected onto an other or body part.  Ultimately, our experience of the world is not objective, but is a combination; a sort of 2 part hologram made up of the sense images presented to the brain, and whatever glosses the mind overlays upon it.  This is why no one will ever find the chakras in the spine or anywhere else outside of the mind.  Why these areas should specifically be thus associated is a mystery, and thus far those who have tried to explain it have only ended up confusing the issue by confusing their inner visions with objective fact.

            Believers in the chakra system may find themselves discomforted by my assertions, and may feel that I am trivializing an important experience or ‘reducing’ the chakras to figments of the imagination.  This is not what I’m saying at all.  All of our experience is ultimately ‘in the mind’, even the apparent world of sense.  But the purely sensory aside, our human experience is not of a materialistic world of hard facts and matter, but of emotional shading, pet notions, intuitive meanings, and a quest for personal satisfaction and happiness.  A hard-minded scientist may look at the chakras as nothing but imagination, but he could not deny that our models of atoms are but imaginings of detected forces that we create to make sense and use of them.  Similarly, while he may explain love as little more than instincts and hormones, when he falls for someone those descriptions will not suffice to capture his actual experience, and he may turn instead to the vague and unscientific poem or love song.  We can benefit from making a distinction between the observation of objective ‘facts’ of the sensory world (like the skeletal system) and observation of subjective experiences of our own psyche.  This is not to say that these subjective experiences are not based on and contiguous to those ‘objective facts’, but our experience is often quite different than whatever is happening objectively (and in the case of the chakras, we really only have the smallest understanding of what that may be).  Our experience of the relation of the sun to the earth is that the sun rises and sets, but in reality that is not what is happening.  But if we were to directly experience the earth as moving rather than stationary we would quickly become too disoriented to do much of anything.  This is a good example, because although we now all know that the earth is in fact moving around the sun, it doesn’t change our personal experience of it, and that experience is not fundamentally different than that of a person who lived in ancient times. Similarly, an understanding of the chakras as mental phenomena does not change our experience of the chakras as apparently localized in the body.

            What I’m trying to say is that mental objects are no less real and important as physical objects, and should not be treated as such.  Above the level of basic survival, mental objects are usually far more of a preoccupation in our lives than any physical object – after all, isn’t the pursuit of happiness itself a quest for a mental state?  When we decide to investigate the inner world more deeply, we must first separate it into discrete forms and structures, just as the ambivalent ocean of milk must be churned to bring out the various objects of the world.  Similarly, we bring out contents from the unconscious and project them out into the world – onto people, or in the case of the chakras, onto the body itself.  This is because we are evolved to think most clearly about physical objects, and that is all our language is developed to handle.  A chakra is so called because a wheel as a symbol can bring up associations of movement, of limited circumference and stable center, not because what is being described has anything in common with a physical wheel of any kind.
 

            The reality of projection, combined with the impossibility of locating the chakras in an autopsy, results in what is often called the subtle body, or astral body.  A way this is often arranged is the 3 body model:  the gross body (the physical body), the subtle body (where the chakras are said to be located), and the causal body.  The last is the deepest, and we might liken it to the Ocean of Milk itself before its separation.  It is by nature undifferentiated, and from it is said to come the subtle body, which in turn is the template for the gross body.  To me, the subtle body is ultimately the vast mental world, inclusive or the projections we overlay onto the physical world.  It is harder to experience directly, hence subtler, and is experienced often as ‘prior’ to the gross.  This is how it is also described in Neoplatonism, which is the Western version of the same idea.

            This brings me full circle back to the creation myth we went into in the last post.  The churning of the ocean of milk was superficially understood as the creation of the world, but esoterically understood as an undoing of the very same process.  Here we have the causal body giving rise to the subtle, which in turn gives rise to the gross.  Where do we get this notion, and why do we care?  It comes from the experience of the mystics and seers themselves.   When we shift our awareness from the hard earth of the gross body, we enter the realm of the mind and its projections.  In order to deal with these mental contents meaningfully, we have to see them as outside of ourselves, as a vision within or projection without.  Either way, we get a new perspective and objectivity in relation to it.  Therefore, a system is developed by the unconscious (it is rarely a conscious choice) or learned from a system like Tantra, and is experienced as a ‘world’ that exists contiguous with (but distinct from) the sense world of physical objects – the ‘astral’ world. When we see the body with this lens, we see the physical body, and we also see the projections we place on it in the form of symbolic systems like the chakra.  This is how the mind sees them, so we assume that such exists in the same way that a table exists.  Similarly, when these contents and complexes are dissolved back into their basic ‘causal’ state, we have the experience of the causal body.

            Ultimately we only find ourselves in murky water when we start to assume that our mental experiences, such as symbolic visions (of figures, elements, of heavens, etc), have a reality of the same type as the various objective objects of the earth.  They are just as important as such facts, but important doesn’t mean literally true.  This is what is meant by the classic mystic injunction “don’t confuse the planes.”  The astral (mental) world does not follow the same rules as the physical, and what is true there may not be true here.  Confusing the two is like confusing the experience of the sun apparently moving across the sky with objective fact.  It appears that way, but we must always remember in the back of our mind that the actual situation is the opposite.  Only the naïve take symbols literally, however helpful and significant they may be.

            When I showed this post to Adrea, she asked an excellent question - what about the use of a pendulum to detect the chakras and energy centers.  This is done when you hold a pendulum over a chakra 'site', and it then moves in various ways which can be interpreted by the reader.  You can try this for yourself very easily and find it works.  What I did in response to Adrea's question was to hang a pendulum from a fixed object (not someone's hand) and demonstrated that for both of us, the pendulum did not move when encountering a chakra.  Ultimately, it is the other person that can detect the chakra, because chakras are interpersonal psychic realities, like the reality of the earth not moving and the sun traveling across the sky, rather than a reality independent of mental life, for instance the fact that the earth does in fact move.  This does not discount ways of knowing other than sensory, like telepathy (which I believe in), the intuitive ability to detect tremendous amounts of information from another person, or even 'energetic healing' which certainly seems to be able to effect plants and animals alike.  Using the chakra model as a structural support for intuition is a valid and useful method of holistic and intuitive healing, but the experience itself may not be, on an objective level, exactly what it seems.

            To recapitulate all this, we can say that the chakras are the localization of psychic contents in the physical form in the form of 7 (or more) archetypal divisions of human experience.  What each of these divisions signify will be topics for later posts.  The means of working with the chakras is to ‘open’ them – i.e., accessing the mental energy locked up in associated complexes and contents.  The technique I’ll be using in my class is called “Tattva-Shuddhi” or element purification, and it is likened to dissolving each chakra, starting at the bottom, or ‘earth’, into the next until they once again become undifferentiated; i.e., resolved back into its causal state in an attempt to experience the ultimate nature, or soul, in itself.  This process is sometimes called Laya Yoga.  Laya means absorption or dissolution.  What is being dissolved?  The complexes.  What is being absorbed?  The newly freed mental energy.  Clearly this is a process of years, not a mere 7 weeks, but we can (and do) practice this again and again with the hope that one day we can break through to the final goal.  In Tantra this goal is poetically described as the union of the goddess Shakti (the manifested reality, or body-mind complex) with Shiva (the soul, or absolute consciousness).  It is effected by the uplifting of the body-mind from its lowest level (the 1^st or ‘root’ chakra) where Shakti is said to be at rest after the exertions of her manifestation, dissolving it into the 2^nd chakra, and so on until Shakti meets her consort at the crown chakra, located at the top of our head.

            For the next 7 weeks we will systematically explore each of the divisions of ideas, and if you care to meditate on the chakras to unlock your personal unconscious, to perhaps begin the process of Laya or dissolution.  I hope you’ll join me in exploring this powerful system.

What the hell are the Chakras anyway? Part I

The chakras, energy, prana, and the whole 'subtle body' thing can be an extremely vague and confusing set of ideas.  What do we mean when we talk about chakras, chakra opening, chakra balancing, chakra purification, etc?  Do a quick google search and you’ll see the diversity of ideas and the strange convolutions of language that this subject seems to generate.  In one place chakras are “energy centers”, in another they are related to (or even reduced to) glands and nerve plexii (that is the plural for plexus, right?), and in another they are related to the astral body or aural field.  To the hard-minded type, this sort of language can make the whole thing easy to write off as hogwash.  They start looking around for the auras and astral body, and can’t detect a thing.  To the more intuitive-minded, descriptions of the chakras seem to echo an intuited truth that is vaguely perceived, and perhaps with practice perceived directly and “seen” in a vision.  My goal in these two posts (broken up for length) is to try to present my theory about the chakras as clearly as I can. Although the very subtlety of the subject matter makes a certain vagueness unavoidable, I will try to avoid the mystification and obfuscation (intentional or not) that is ubiquitous in this field.

            The chakras are usually described as “energetic centers”, “psychic centers”, or some such “center”.  The word ‘chakra’ (pronounced ‘cha-kra’, not ‘sha-kra’) just means ‘wheel’, but this, psychologically speaking, implies a center.  A wheel is essentially a mandala shape, an organization of images around a single point in the center.  The circumference is the limit which contains the related ideas.  The chakras are often described as moving, spinning, or revolving, implying constant change and flux.  This also relates to the idea of the ‘chitta vritti’ of modification (vritti) of the mind-stuff (chitta), or libido. Vritti implies change, revolution (as in Parvritta Trikonasana, rotated triangle pose), or movement.  We can think of the chittam or libido as an ocean of undifferentiated mental energy, within which are numerous eddies, waves, and whirlpools which are our thoughts.  Some of these harden into habits, hard notions, and complexes. In my last post (on the Ocean of Milk), I briefly touched on the idea that our complexes are ‘knots’ in the libido, or sum total of mental energy.  These knots bind up energy into forms, these forms forming the structure of our individual psyche.  Got picked on in middle school?  That probably effects how you see the world, and creates life-patterns that give form to your conception of yourself and your world.  Had a supportive and stable family situation growing up?  That too creates your way of interacting with the world.  When we identify closely with these patterns, we are limiting the potential ways we understand ourselves and our environment.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this – if it was any other way, we would have no individuality, or even motivations, and the beauty of diversity would be lost, because there could be no action. 

            A totally calm chittam (the yogic state of “chitta vritti nirodha”, cessation of mental change), is a state of potential and not activated, manifest energy.  This is a state of separation from the world, and of identifying with the undifferentiated soul itself rather than the specific persona (as an aggregate of the chitta vrittis).  This, according to the Yoga Sutras, is the goal of yoga.  But should the ultimate goal be to remain therein, absorbed in the ultimate unmanifest reality?  To me, this seems like escapism, and a pathological rejection of the world.  I think the healthier and mature way is presented in such thoughts as “after enlightenment, the laundry.”  Or of the college student who asked the Zen monk “what would you do if one day you were on your way to get some ice cream and you achieved nirvana?” to which the monk replied “I’d probably go enjoy some ice cream.”  In many traditions there is an important grounding, a rooting of even the highest flights of the spirit into the grossest earth.  High meditative states mean nothing if you still going around acting like a jerk to everyone when you’re not meditating.  Ultimately, we live on the earth, not in heaven. 

            Tantra, the religious tradition which developed the chakra system most completely (part of Hinduism, related to but distinct from yoga, Vedanta, etc.), also provides an answer to the ‘unworldliness’ of the more traditional yogic systems.  It does this through the veneration not only of the pure Purusha (soul) freed from its samyoga (bondage) in Prakriti (matter-mind), but by the veneration of the principal of manifestation itself – this stuff that we live in, of which the body, the mind, and everything else is made of.  This is the idea of this  world itself as God.  In the Yoga Sutras, Purusha is the only goal, and Prakriti (the world) is what must be ultimately rejected in order to experience that goal.  In Tantra, Prakriti is called Ma, the Goddess, Shakti (meaning power), and is worshiped equally with her counterpart, or with even more devotion.  Her counterpart is called here Shiva, which we can treat as consciousness, the Self, and the soul.  What is recognized herein is not only that manifest reality is a good thing, but also that the mind-body complex, which is considered Prakriti, or various stages of matter, is the vehicle for enlightenment.  This is far from the idea that the body or mind is a burden, but it also is inclusive of the notion that the mind-body can also act as a prison.  It is therefore neutral, able to be used for animal pleasure, or to scale the heights of the soul.  The body-mind is the cause of bondage, but it is also what is liberated; the soul is already free.

            Sir John Woodruff in his book The Serpent Power sums this positive notion of the world up well:  “One of the cardinal principles of the Shakta-Tantra is to secure by its Sadhana [practice] both Liberation (Mukti) and Enjoyment (Bhukti).  This is possible by the identification of the self when in enjoyment with the soul of the world.”  It is the recognition that all souls are one soul experienced not only in the highest states reached by the renunciate (the unmanifest), but also in the daily experience of the embodied soul (the manifest).   Realization of that, as opposed to merely intellectualizing it, is difficult either way, and with ultimately the same obstacle – the false identification of the self with the characteristic habits of mind, the body, and persona.  If we are ‘this person’ we can never experience the world from any other  than the egotic point of view.  If we learn to loosen the borders of our little self, we get a shift of perspective, and are able to create a new relationship with the contents of our own mind.  To me, this is ultimately what Tantra and the chakra system is all about – a way to gain perspective on, and to ultimately resolve and dissolve, our own complexes and ways of thinking about the contents of our experience.

            In psychology, this is often done by what is called ‘projection’ – this is where psychic content, say unresolved issues, are externalized and overlaid onto an outside object, often a person.  An example:  a woman’s unresolved issues with her father are projected onto her mate.  Women are often said to marry their fathers.  There may be repetitions of similar behavior with all previous boyfriends, etc.  What this really represents is an externalization of a content that can’t easily be assimilated, but when it is outside of us it can represent an opportunity to change the way we look at it, or change the habit – but only when we can reclaim, or reabsorb the projection.  Otherwise, the projection leads us on a merry chase and we replay the same dramas over and over again.  But if the content is separated from the self it can then be reabsorbed into a more stable whole, a higher synthesis.  You may be beginning to see the connection with my previous two posts. 

Read on to Part II

Stories from the Bhagavata Purana: Part II, Churning the Ocean of Milk

You may have heard of Creatio ex Nihlo (creation out of nothing), but have you ever heard of Creatio ex Lactis (creation out of milk)?  That’s my subject for today – the story of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, which is usually understood as a creation story but has much more to it than that.  It is a bit more elaborate than the Gajendra story, so please pardon the length of the post.  First, my synopsis (complete text here):

            Picking up where we left off in my last post, the paradise-like mount Mandara (Meru) floats in an ocean of milk.  After the Gajendra tale we discussed, the devas (“shining ones,” or Gods) and the asuras (demons) end up fighting a terrible war.  The Supreme Deity (Brahman the absolute, symbolized here as Vishnu) calls up Shiva and Brahma (the creator god, not to be confused with Brahman, the impersonal absolute) and suggests that to stop the war they convince both sides to join forces for a truly epic task:  churning the ocean of milk to find the mythic amṛta (pronounced ‘amrita’), or nectar of immortality.  Mṛta means death, and when you add an ‘a’ in Sanskrit, it reverses the meaning (like theist becoming atheist).  The amṛta then is the essence of life itself, the divine ambrosia which makes whomever drinks it immortal.  There are parallel European myths, such as the Norse Idunn with her youth maintaining golden apples, and more closely the ambrosia of the Greek Gods, with which there is a clear linguistic connection.  

            Who doesn’t want eternal youth?  Demons and gods both are excited about the prospect, so the war is quickly suspended and both the good guys and bad guys team up to churn the ocean.  Vishnu’s great serpent (called ananta, or "endless") uproots the great mountain so that they can use it as the dasher to churn the milk, and he also acts as the rope they use to rotate the mountain.  The mountain immediately starts to sink, but Vishnu is there in a pinch and holds it up by becoming a giant turtle.  The assembled forces then begin to churn the ocean.

            The first thing that happens is that an intense heat is generated, so that the gods can barely continue.  Also, the churning awakens the various nasties living in the milky “waters” – crocodiles and serpents especially.  The workers appeal to Vishnu, gives them the strength to persevere.

            Now the churning starts to bear its fruit.  Although in the story 14 different things come up, I'm going to limit myself to talking about the main three.  First comes the hālahala, a terrible fatal poison which threatens to spoil everything and poison every living thing on earth.  Desperate, they turn to Shiva, who, being so holy, and so self-contained and perfected, offers to drink all the poison up.  When he does so, it turns his face blue permanently.  A few drops of course spill, which become the venom of poisonous animals. That’s just how these creation myths go.

            Now that the poison is gone, the crew gets back to work, churning away for thousands of years.  The next thing to come is Lakshmi, the great goddess of fertility, wealth, and essentially all worldly goods and material happiness.  Immediately everyone gets distracted, presumably because of her sheer sexiness.  Most forget the amṛta entirely, even starting to fight over her.  Vishnu solves this problem, upraising Lakshmi to his side as his wife.  With her enthroned in heaven, everyone can get get back to work.  

            Finally, the amṛta comes out in a pot carried by the divine god of medicine, and no sooner does it arise than it is stolen by the asuras, which of course starts another war.  The devas eventually win, destroying the asuras and the nectar is rescued and the gods become immortal.  Creation also arises out of this churning (Lakshmi, etc). 

            Now lets get into what all this means.  Swamiji’s narrative was what got me started on this, so I’ll give that first:  the churning is yogic meditation, which first brings up poison, or impurities and complexes, to the surface of the mind which can only be absorbed by a yogi whose non-attachment, austerities, self-control, and self-understanding are like unto that yogic archetype Shiva.  Then comes Lakshmi, which represents the Siddhis, the “perfections” or “powers” that come to the yogi as he nears the goal.  These are traditionally said to be distractions from the path as it is tempting to use them for worldly gain and can lead the yogi to a great fall.  We see this in the churners forgetting their work when they see the beautiful Lakshmi.  The worldly powers must be offered up to higher ideas and wedded to God; in other words, used only for spiritual purposes, if at all, so that the churning can continue.  Lastly comes the nectar itself, knowledge of the Self, the immortal part of us, which we might call the immortal soul. 

           

            I must say, I love this interpretation, as it certainly follows the process of meditation, but reading the actual text I feel the need to add to it my own thoughts.  I've been reading a lot of Jung lately, so it's going to be heavily psychological.  You may recall from last time that the Ocean of Milk can be seen as the Unconscious, and that its an ambivalent symbol containing both our primal fears and issues (crocodiles and other reptiles), as well as the nectar of immortality itself.  The mountain is an earth symbol, stability, and here also I’d say consciousness, which is dislodged from its thrown by the serpent of wisdom, and nearly drowns.  Only the intervention of God (self surrender), saves it.  The serpent can also be a connection to the idea of kundalini, the shakti or power of consciousness dwelling in the spine.  It is kundalini which rises up to activate each of the chakras.  The churning first brings uncomfortable heat, as anyone who has ever examined himself, or for that matter practiced hatha yoga, knows.   The heat can also represent tapas, or austerity, the 'heat' generated by the purification of the body and mind.  It is characteristically unpleasant and difficult. Only faith in the process gets us over that first hurdle.  We get used to it and then we are able to start churning in earnest.

            The first things that come up are the complexes, the “issues” we all have under the surface.  Complexes are defined by Freud as essentially knots in the Libido, the sum total of our mental energy.  These knots “tie up” this energy, and when we work them out, whether through therapy or meditation, the release the energy back into the whole.  Jung adds to this that it is as if these complexes (and other psychic contents) seem to act autonomously, and he suggests that consciousness has invested them with a bit of itself.  By that logic, undoing these knots is reclaiming and unifying consciousness.  Clearly, this isn’t easy, and there’s a reason the poison was said to spread in every direction to destroy everything it touched.  Aren’t our own inner demons kind of like that?  Think of an irrational fear you might have and how that can poison an otherwise good experience.  Think of how jealousy can poison a beautiful relationship.  Without self-control and non-attachment, reclaiming these things (“swallowing” them), is nearly impossible. 

            Ah, but what rewards there are for those who are willing to do the work!  Lakshmi herself, all worldly good, comes out of the churning next.  In my opinion, the Siddhis of yoga are the increased mental (and physical) power that is unlocked as we work out our physical and mental knots.  The more mental (or physical) energy we reclaim, the more “powerful” we become.  Of course, if we began the process frustrated with the world, our new-found power may cause us to get lost in it.  Suddenly, the things that seemed unattainable become easy to the yogi, be it finding a healthy relationship (now that we’ve left our issues at the door), being physically able to enjoy the body in sports and recreation, or having the concentration and mental power to make lots of money.  The temptation is to stop at this point to enjoy our results. It's very common to use yoga as a way to merely “fix” ourselves, or help us function better in the world of men.  I don’t honestly believe that there’s anything wrong this – we should be glad for any yogi who is able to digest his own poison.  However, this text (and the whole tradition) is emphatic in its teaching that there is more yet available for those who can take their worldly power and dedicate it up to God (marrying Lakshmi to Vishnu).  This giving up of the fruits of our labor is called karma yoga, sublimating our worldly activities - work as prayer.  We can also consider this in terms of universal archetypes.  Lakshmi is the divine mother, the earth goddess, which here ascends to heaven as a divine consort.  We see something similar in the Catholic notion of the Assumption of the Virgin.  Jung makes a big deal of this in numerous works, and for good reason.  Mary, the earthly woman in whom Christ gestates, can be considered the “shadow” of the Holy Trinity which so conspicuously lacks a female component – Christianity’s blind spot we might say.  The Assumption of the earthly woman, bodily rather than in spirit, to heaven, has been depicted in art and literature for centuries, but it was not a part of official church doctrine until the 1950s, and then only in response to popular belief, not the church fathers.  See Jung’s Answer to Job for a more complete discussion of this.

            The last thing is of course the nectar itself, the symbol of the goal, which creates a war again between the devas and asuras.  I encourage you to glance back at an older post of mine, “Daddy, why do the Demons Howl,” for a bit about what the asuras represent.  We can liken the devas, the “shining ones”, to the opposite, the uplifting and virtuous thoughts of the mind.  We may take this war as a final conflict of the opposing forces in the mind, provoked by the end being in sight. It’s a fierce battle, and at its climax, the demons create a terrible illusion of a mountain from which falls burning trees, rocks, etc, and this nearly causes the lines of the devas to break and run.  But at the last moment, the supreme Lord himself appears on the battlefield, and the illusion instantly vanishes.  It’s an intriguing moment:  the illusion is specifically a mountain, which seems again to be a symbol of stability, and probably the ego itself.  We can call this the illusion of a stable ego, which the demonic forces exist only in relation to.  You can look at it this way – “demonic” ideas, as symbolized by the asuras, are given power only because we mistake the ego as the whole Self (taken either in a Jungian or Vedantic sense).  The thought to steal or possess is only possible in relation to the ego, which feels itself special and deserving of possession. In other words, we can look at the egotic asuras as selfish motivations and the limited attitude of the individual ego.  We can only justify selfish behavior when the ego appears dominant and stable.  If the ego is seen as illusory, then how do we justify gratifying its desires?  So too here, as the Lord, i.e., the true Self in the religious sense, or as a symbol for the totality of the psyche (in the Jungian sense), destroys at last the illusion so cherished by the asuras, and allows the gods victory.  

            Interestingly, this victory is not as complete as it first appears.  Even after the asuras are slain, the Supreme One causes them to be revived.  There will be later wars between the two factions, and this appears to be God’s desire.  The lesser gods have faith in that plan, but don’t always understand it.  The demons don’t get it at all, even possibly thinking God on their side (like all egoists) and they continue on their destructive path.  I’m not going to go too far into it, but after the churning story, Bali, the greatest of the demons, even invades heaven, taking over earth and heaven.  He is tricked into giving Vishnu in one of his forms 3 footsteps of his new realm, whereupon Vishnu reveals to Bali his true celestial form, with one step covering the whole earth, with another heaven.  Bali, enlightened by the vision, offers his own head (ego), “a man’s most prized possession” as he puts it, as a place for his third step.  He becomes changed thereby, and tells the rest of the demons to retreat.  To paraphrase “The same Supreme Lord that helped us before (revived us) now wishes for our defeat.  We cannot therefore win by any means, and we must therefore retreat until the time is right for us.”  This is a wonderful change of events.  Bali, the demonic general, comes to a new understanding of himself and his type in the relationship to the whole (psyche).  Both the devas and the asuras are changed by this conflict, and a new order is given to the world.  To me, this can be just as easily read as saying a new order is given to the mind.

            In a way this esoteric interpretation is actually a full reversal of the popular meaning.  Meditation and many forms of mysticism actually seek to reverse the process of creation, and if you think about it, that’s really what this is describing.  The undivided Ocean of Milk is not the primordial unconscious, but the unconscious we start with when we begin to meditate: a mixture of poison, power and nectar.  Through the churning we separate out what the years have added to the psyche, trying to get at the immortal primal self or soul that underlies it.  The power and the poison are like nature and nurture, creating the content of the ocean, while the nectar is our bare essence.  If anything, we start with the amrita, and acquire the poison through our experience.  This “creation” myth esoterically interpreted is actually its opposite, a myth of “uncreation.”  I can’t help but think of the gnostic ascent, in which as the soul ascends upwards it sheds the influence of the planets (symbolical of the personality traits), getting lighter and lighter until only the bare soul stands before God.

            As I’ve covered most of this Canto, so its fitting that I end with its final image: Vishnu incarnated as a giant fish.  I’ve been reading Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis, and he dedicates some space to fish symbolism, emphasizing the unblinking quality of its eyes.  This appears in two forms, either the constellated form (many eyes, often appearing as stars), and a singular form (the eye of God).  Given the aquatic nature of this whole chapter, and thereby its connection to the unconscious, we can describe the various forces of the psyche that appear in it as the constellated unconscious; the autonomous complexes and forms which have to be resolved, i.e., fight it out, that their energy may be reclaimed.  If you’ve seen the movie Inception (which I heartily recommend), you may remember the moments where the unblinking eyes of the “projections” turn upon the dreamer – that’s the constellated unconscious.  The ocean of milk here is separated (as light from darkness) into the poison, the powers, and the nectar.  The differentiation requires a new order to be created; paradise cannot be regained once we have tasted the fruit and we have to find a new wholeness, and perhaps a new relationship with ourselves.  A battle must be fought in the mind for dominance, aka unification, of the world. And at the end the text presents as its last image of the chapter something that seems to have little to do with the rest of the story – God incarnating as a giant fish, with its unblinking eye, the eye of God.  This, as Jung would no doubt agree, is a symbol of the Self, the totality, now swimming dominantly in the ocean of the unconscious, whose unblinking gaze the newly reconstructed ego (like the enlightened Bali) can never again hide from.  The Self has become One whole, One mind, One God, and though the battles go on, even the generals of the forces of evil now know that there is a place for the good and the evil in the hands of God.

Stories from the Bhagavata Purana: Part I

            There’s a fascinating Hindu creation story in the Bhagavata Purana which Swamiji recently brought to my attention.  The Bhagavata is a rather long Vaishnava work, mostly detailing Vishnu’s (as Krishna) various incarnations but containing a wealth of other stories.  The 8^th Skanda, or Canto, called “Withdrawal of the Cosmic Creations” is particularly interesting to me, as it contains the story of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.  You may have heard of it before, but I’d like to analyze it in a bit more depth.  It’s an important story, often told in a simplified form to children, but it is also a rich source of traditional exegesis, as well plenty of fodder for my own more modern interpretation.  I’ll retell part of the story here, and hopefully we’ll get at some of the underlying archetypal currents.  Before I get to the Milk story however, I’d like to start with the opening of the Canto, which superficially seems to have rather little to do with the rest of it (other than establishing the setting), but is very valuable in its own right.

            The Canto begins with the depiction of a setting much resembling Paradise, or the Primal Garden.  It is a mountain of three peaks rising out of an Ocean of Milk.  In this “garden” there is perfect harmony, lots of beautiful flowers, and peace among the inhabitants.  This peace is largely due to the power of the Elephant King Gajendra, who protects the small animals from the larger.  One day, he comes across a pool of refreshing water, and being a family man, brings his family along for a dip and drink on the hot day.  Being lost in the thoughts of his family, his foot is grabbed by a crocodile in the water.  All the other elephants come to help, but they can’t drag Gajendra out, as none is as at home in the water as the Crocodile.  Gajendra, realizing that no one can help him, surrenders himself to the Supreme One, and in so doing so is saved, the Crocodile being cut in half by the Lord’s power.  He then goes about the island praising the Lord, doing mantra and sacrificing, etc.  He then receives the further grace of remembering his past incarnation (something not normally allowed to animals) as a ascetic yogi who in meditation failed to rise to greet an ancient Rishi (seer), and was thus cursed by him to incarnate as an elephant.  He is then taken up as an associate of Krishna, and is allowed to ride upon the back of Garuda, the King of the Eagles.

            The story completely shifts course after this, but before I go further, I want to take apart what we’ve already seen.  Firstly, the Garden is the primal creation, the world before the Fall in the Abrahamic religions. It represents a state of innocence, and we can interpret the myth of the Fall as an awakening to consciousness - the eating from the tree of knowledge, prompted by that wise old serpent (that's the gnostic interpretation anyway).  In the Bhagavata, there's a similar "bliss in ignorance" (as we see, the elephant does not really know his own nature at first), and everything appears harmonious and without conflict. 

            As we have seen, the harmony is partially based on the efforts of Gajendra, the elephant King.  Things appear orderly, but we know there's more in the world than the innocent elephants know, and not all of it is good. The elephant is the traditional Indian symbol for the earth element and the root chakra, being large, physically powerful, and as immovable as a mountain. The elephant is stability, has ties to our roots (an elephant never forgets), and here the King of the Elephants is also described as a house-holder, connecting him with family life (the in-group, or tribe).  It is this that gets him in trouble, the text tells us.  By enjoying his family he is distracted and fails to notice the danger in the water.  He is, we might say, unconscious of it.  Water here is a crucial symbol, one which C.G. Jung never fails to connect to the unconscious and the irrational part of us that lurks under the surface.  It is an ambivalent symbol, as the unconscious is so incomprehensibly vast.  It is the nourishing, sustaining, life-giving water, the font of renewal (baptism), the creative power, as well as the keeper of our secrets, the place where our Shadow dwells, and can be full of unexpected dangers, symbolized by the Crocodile.  Gajendra brings his family to the water to rest and relax, to restore from the hot day.  Water also represents the feminine or relational quality (usually unconscious in men), which appears as Gajendra’s distraction by the familial relationships.  He is unable to see what lurks under the calm surface.  We may remember the Greek Narcissus, who caught his own image (the reflection in his unconscious, his persona) in the water, was fascinated and drowned.  Here, the elephant, the strongest of beasts, is caught as well, and begins a mighty struggle to extricate himself.  But, not being a water animal (the conscious ego is not the native inhabitant of the unconscious), he can’t free himself under his own power.  Neither can outside forces help him.  It is only by surrender to a higher power, a Redeemer, which Jung would call the image of the complete Self (not in the sense of the soul or atman, but in the sense of the totality of the psyche, conscious plus unconscious), that he is able to get free.  We might say that he then “gets some religion.”  His further grace of remembering his past incarnation is also worth commenting on.  He was once human, and because he was too lofty a yogi (who couldn’t even bother to pay attention to his surroundings – life on Earth), was given an animal form, specifically the symbolic animal of the Earth.  In other words, he is made to descend.  But by his struggle in the waters, he is uplifted, and his ego is understood and transcended. He ceases to identify merely with the conscious ego, but with more of his whole Self.

            The lowest chakra is the Muladhara, or "root support" Chakra, and in Hindu mythology the world is said to be supported by elephants, and they symbolize Earth.  The second chakra is connected to water, and is emotional and fascinating (sex is an important association).  So we see here Gajendra stepping up into the second chakra, symbolized by being pulled into the water.  After his struggle, he dedicates himself to spiritual work, what we might call tapas.  This is connected to the internal flame of motivation and purification (Sulphur in alchemy), and the fiery 3^rd or egotic chakra.  By grace he is given knowledge of past lives, which effectively overthrows the limited egotic point of view (psychologically, we might say he becomes aware of other 'selves').  He recognizes that he is a high soul, who, because of past karma, has been brought low (to the earth).  By this, he is upraised by Krishna, who is said to rule the heart, and is given the privilege of riding upon the back of the Eagle King Garuda, a clear symbol of air. Air is the element of the 4th or heart chakra.  We may say, in total, that the story of Gajendra is the story of a man who rises high spiritually, but who is forced to “come back down to earth” before he may once again ascend, this time higher than before.  For many of us, this is what working with the chakra system is like.  It makes you start at the beginning, to get humble and dirty down in the gritty earth, before we can rise up again on the back of Garuda the Eagle. 

            I bring up the chakras because I’ll be starting a 7 week Chakra Cycle in my Sunday 10am Open Level Flow with Meditation class next week (4/10).  I hope to include a post on each of the Chakras as we progress through each, and it is helpful to understand them as symbols associated with very real psychic contents.  Stories like the above can be very useful in understanding the psychic processes that can result from meditation on these powerful symbols.  As this post has gotten lengthy, I’ll break it up and discuss the Ocean of Milk next time. 

Government Regulation of Yoga Teacher Training

I want to take a moment to respond to a recent blog post by Darla Magee in the popular yoga blog YogaDork. (Go ahead, read it – It’s short and I’ll wait.) While I often enjoy the light-hearted and occasionally silly posts, this one somewhat irritated me.  It concerns a new initiative by the Texas government to regulate Yoga Teacher Trainings in that state, under the jurisdiction of the Texas Workforce Commission which regulates post-secondary education (post high school, specifically vocational education).  I should note that this government organization specifically exempts dance, physical fitness and martial arts training from their purview, as these are non-vocational – in other words, they are not intending to train you to perform a job.  While clearly teacher trainings can prepare you for working as a teacher trainer, this is not the only reason people undertake them.  Furthermore, not only do many people who go through a training never teach professionally, a significant portion of the training hours usually covers philosophy, spiritual practices, and classic texts which are rarely taught, if ever, in a standard yoga class.

            Magee’s main argument in support of such regulation is that there are yoga teachers out there right now who clearly do not know what they’re doing.  She seems to believe that government regulation will fix this problem, and not only that – she seems to believe that it will help spread yoga to more people.  She writes: “Imagine getting the Federal Government to bring yoga to the military! Imagine getting your health insurance to pay for your classes! Imagine government money and student loans for teacher training! For all of these reasons and so many more, the state’s acknowledgment of yoga opens many doors toward making yoga mainstream, accessible, and affordable to all.”

            Without getting too deeply into the debate about what “yoga” is anyway (is it a spiritual practice and therefore protected from government interference under the Constitution, or is it just Zumba with Indian spice?) I want to point out why Ms. Magee’s view is superficial, economically naïve, and ultimately detrimental to the diversity and spread of yoga. 

            Who really thinks that state bureaucrats are even remotely qualified to regulate yoga?  (Let alone TEXAS state bureaucrats!)  How will they define yoga?  How will they regulate the curriculum?  How can they possibly be in the place to offer any guidance on this ancient tradition? With the abundance of styles, points of emphasis, how is it possible to really regulate such a thing effectively?  Consider meditation alone – is it part of the yoga practice?  If so, how much time should be allocated to it in a 200 hour training?  More importantly, how can a bureaucratic committee, which may not even include a single person with meditation or yoga experience possibly make such a distinction.  It may be fairly argued that the regulations can be kept fluid, much like the Yoga Alliance’s standards, but if that’s the case I don’t see the point of regulation.  After all, the Yoga Alliance has become the de facto industry standard unless laws are passed to make the teaching of yoga illegal without having graduated from a state certified training.  This leads to further complications caused by varying state standards, not to mention the potential embarrassment of the visiting authentic Indian yogis, whose only training may have been at the feet of their (unlicensed) guru, when they are fined for teaching yoga without being “qualified.”  The bag of worms is deep indeed.

            A perhaps more important question is why the State is getting involved anyway?  Have you heard of a spat of recent yoga accidents?  I haven’t.  Sure, there are bad teachers out there, even a few who may be dangerously negligent. But knee-jerk regulation is not the way to go.  Bad teachers, like bad anything else, will soon find themselves moving on to another line of work.  A few bad apples should not require that the government should inspect every apple tree.  Are state bureaucrats such passionate yogis themselves that they really care about making sure that yoga is properly taught?  Clearly not.  But if you look at what regulation of yoga schools actually means, the motivation becomes clear:  it allows the state to charge licensing fees to yoga studios who offer teacher training programs. 

 

            I have to assume that the financial factor is what Ms. Magee meant when she said she was “bowing out and taking my money with me once I got a look at the real motives of those who are most loudly protesting”.  Clearly this writer was absolutely disgusted with the fact that studio owners might protest that their bottom line was adversely affected by the regulation.  Oh, those greedy yoga studios, always out to make a buck! As the owner of a small yoga studio in a small town, let me tell you that a teacher training program is financially a godsend, and in many cases is the difference between subsistence living and being able to pay off the debts incurred by opening the studio to begin with, not to mention the possibility of expansion.  And by expansion I don’t mean lavish new facilities, but the addition of classes, and yes, the hiring of yoga teachers other than the owners.  When New York tried to regulate training programs (and thankfully backed down), what it meant for my small business was that we would not be able to afford licensing (in New York, the proposed application fee was $5,000), and therefore we would not be able to afford to offer a program. I ask Ms. Magee – is it bad to want to be able to pay one’s bills, to make a living doing what one loves, to want to share yoga at the deeper level of a teacher training, and to do so independently?   I can also say that, as a business owner, if I can’t support my family through my business, I can’t hire other yoga teachers either.  That cuts down on the diversity of voices in the community, as well as the ability of individual yoga teachers to support themselves.  Sure, there’s gyms, but any experienced yogi can tell you the differences between a yoga class held at a gym, where philosophy and spirituality is often discouraged by the owners, and a class at a dedicated studio space which offers a different level of freedom to teachers. 

            The costs of regulation on small businesses might also mean that only the largest, big-name studios would be able to afford to train yogis.  Perhaps this is what Magee wants when she writes about wanting yoga to enter the mainstream.  But to me, this means the further branding of yoga, and the consolidation of yoga under certain companies and/or teachers.  As the largest studios are in the cities, it also means that one would have to be near a major city to complete a training.  Of course, the market will eventually adjust, and with the further concentration of revenue in the large studios, franchises offering training (under the same license as the main studio) might appear in small towns.  I would predict that this will make it harder for small businesses like mine, and may even drive up the cost of yoga in some areas. 

            Magee’s main argument in support of regulation is that it is equivalent to the state “recognizing” yoga, as if such a thing is needed.  She wants insurance companies to cover yoga, and student loans for trainings, etc.  A noble goal, certainly, but one which state governments do not have the power (or the interest) to enact.  New York State regulates Massage Therapy more strictly than just about any other state, and there are national standards as well.  Yet most insurance carriers still do not cover massage therapy.  Certainly, massage therapy is “recognized” by the government, and is possibly more accepted by physicians than yoga, but its recognition has done little to change the private sector, although it clearly generates revenue for the state.  This directly affects the cost of training, as the school must pay licensing fees on top of other expenses.  Different standards by state also means that tuition fluctuates wildly.  In Texas, for instance, the price of the 500 hr massage therapy training averages around $5000, while in New York, with its 1000 hr training can be over $20,000.  Ultimately, regulation does not make this practice more accessible, nor does it bring yoga into the light of mainstream awareness – yoga is already mainstream!  What it does do is streamline yoga, reducing diversity and intellectual (and spiritual) freedom by transferring control from the teachers and representatives of the tradition, who have an important stake in the discipline, to the state, which ultimately only cares about yoga for its potential revenue.  Yes, I'm aware that the state is only regulating trainings, not classes, but for a yoga teacher, what experience is more formative than a teacher training?

            I recognize that the Yoga Alliance often seems to have its head up its ass.  Regardless, they have successfully set the standard for 200 and 500 hr trainings, and I believe they are doing good thereby.  Yet even within Yoga Alliance certified trainings there is a tremendous variance of quality.  My studio’s training far exceeds  the minimum standards of the Yoga Alliance in terms of hours, as well as the rigor of the program.  I’ve also heard horror stories of some really, really bad teacher training programs which happen to be certified.  This is clearly a case of “buyer beware.”  Do your research before you throw down your hard-earned cash for a training – I did, and got exactly what I was looking for. 

            Regulation, in order to represent the diversity inherent in the yoga tradition, would substantially be no different than the Yoga Alliance, with the same flaws and problems.  The only difference would be the level of expense and its subsequent impact on small businesses, studio-contracted yoga teachers, and potential teachers looking for an affordable training.  Whatever qualitative problems may exist among yoga teachers, state regulation is clearly not the answer.

Books, Bibliophiles and Sacred Scripture

Books and Western Civilization go hand-in-hand.  Ever since Julius Caesar (maybe) invented the codex, aka the book as we know it, we as a civilization have been in love.  This is not to say that books were not important elsewhere (that would just be silly), but I would argue that books have taken on an out-sized role in European culture that has shaped our thought in subtle ways.  I want to use India as my counter-example, as it’s the non-Western region I know the most about, and because of certain similarities of thought.  I would love to hear from anyone who knows something about the Arabic or East Asian traditions on this topic.

            You may be familiar with the idea of an oral tradition and its importance in transferring culture.  When I think of oral tradition in the West, I think of Homer, whose works were recited often only in part by traveling bards, creating varied stories that changed over time.  The philosophers of old, too, relied primarily on oral teachings, such as the lectures of the Athenian Academy, or of those numerous philosophers who didn’t do much writing, but did a lot of influential teaching.  Socrates is the clearest example of this.  Those works which were committed to the page often had an oral quality, from Plato’s dialogues, the speeches of Epictetus (written down by a loyal student who made a big deal about trying to preserve his rhetorical style) and numerous others.

            Thinking of Indian culture, we can see very similar documents.  The Bhagavad Gita is meant to be sung, the Upanishads are often in dialogue form, and the entire Sutra tradition (including Patanjali’s famous work) is structured for maximum ease of memorization.  Traditional Indian teaching relies heavily on memorization of texts, key points, and even grammatical rules, even to this day.  This is Swami’s style, and I struggle with it, and he knows that I have no intention of methodically memorizing texts.  It is however extremely impressive when he rattles off quote after quote in perfect Sanskrit. 

            While in India oral culture has been essentially unbroken, European oral culture essentially died out during the Dark Ages, as barbarians wrecked the Roman Empire, and learned men wilted from lack of patronage and cloistered themselves in monasteries.  Here the book became increasingly important, and as Europe slowly picked itself up and began to rediscover its heritage, the cultural transmission was entirely through the medium of the book.  The Greeks and Romans  were reintroduced to the West by trade with the Arabic world through Spain, as well by the flight of scholars from (and the pillage of) Constantinople, the last vestige of Rome.  These and other rediscovered books contained secrets and mysteries that it seemed no man knew, and they, rather than other men, became the symbol of knowledge.  This plays out in myths through the such icons as the cursed book, the Grimoire, Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, and movies like the underrated “9^th Gate”.  These represent the power of the book to unleash strange and powerful ideas that have the potential to upset the preconceptions of the reader or even the very order of the world.  The stark division between the literate and illiterate in medieval Europe must have exacerbated this.  In largely illiterate societies, writing has often been associated with magic.  In ancient Egypt writing very nearly was magic, and the history of talismans shows the power that strange images and scribbles had upon the imagination.  Consulting books and gleaning strange knowledge by merely glancing at obscure and mysterious symbols must have seemed akin to divination at some level, and indeed, there is even a sub-field of divination – bibliomancy – based on this idea. 

            A natural result of this is the desire to write a great book one’s self.  We hear about the quest for the “Great American Novel” or more previously a single unified Metaphysics, such as was attempted by Spinoza, Descartes, and others.  An interesting effect of the myth of the book is that, with the printing press, this tradition flooded our culture with books, new and old.  I leave it to the historians of science to determine the impact of this on the European scientific revolution, but we can assume a major influence.  An increasingly literate culture, with ever-increasing access to information clearly paved the way for the modern age.  As an aside, consider the fact that more new books were printed last year than existed in the Great Library of Alexandria by its final year.

            There is also a question of authority to consider.  It is the habit of every culture to mythologize and give sacred meaning to the past.  Anything that is old becomes hallowed eventually, whether as museum pieces or immutable and infallible authorities of traditional culture.  The Guru in India certainly fills this role.  The guru is the repository of (often memorized, and thereby monopolized) knowledge passed down from hallowed antiquity, and therefore he is worshiped nearly (or actually) as a god.  In Europe, it is often the book that is so exalted.  The literal adherence to the authority of the Bible, considered literally as "the word of God" even today, speaks to this, but it is not the only example, even if it is the most important.  For centuries, the works of Aristotle and Plato, not to mention the more esoteric Corpus Hermeticum, were considered almost infallible in the same way as the Indian guru.  The academic tradition (now on the decline, for better or worse) of education by the “Great Books” is another, if later, manifestation of the same instinct.

            Strangely, it was the Tea Party movement that inspired this post.  I was reading some ridiculous op-ed piece on Fox News (I like to keep tabs on ‘The Enemy’) and I was struck by the sheer fetishism demonstrated towards the U.S. Constitution.  The founders, because they’re long dead, are hallowed into Saints, and their main document is near worshiped by the modern conservative movement.  Despite the fact that it’s needed to be amended 27 times, it is considered almost infallible to the “strict constitutionalist” type. 

            You can probably guess my feelings on all this. While I myself am something of a bibliophile (I have a library that I’m proud of and a bookshelf of antique or rare books), I clearly don’t approve of traditions of infallibility regarding any text, ancient or modern.  But I’m not really trying to make an argument against such silliness here, which would likely just be me preaching to the choir.  Instead, I want to pose some questions.  Conservatism, narrow-mindedness, and literalist interpretations appear all over the world, in as many different forms as there are cultures (or people).  That said, how much of an influence has the European book tradition had on the particular manifestation of conservatism that we see in this country today?  Has our bibliophile cultural inheritance had a part to play in emphasizing the infallibility of texts such as the Bible of the U.S. Constitution? 

           

Thinking about Caturanga Dandasana

I've been terrible about keeping up with this blog lately, which I hope to remedy soon.  The reason is that I've been in 'research mode' looking into one of my favorite subjects, Renaissance and Medieval occultism, and in particular the 'angelic conversations' of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley.  This stuff fascinates me in a way little else can, and I hope to write a bit about this topic in the future.  For now, I have but a short post to sustain you.

As many of you have no doubt heard me complain, Sanskrit is a difficult language, and it is a constant struggle for me to learn it.  It doesn't help that the traditional way of studying the language is about as exciting as Ben Stein's voice, or that the study materials produced in India are inconsistent, full of errors, and in general a massive pain in the ass.  Part of my homework is "working up" new verbs that I come across in a notebook intended for that purpose.  The idea is to write out its numerous forms and conjugations for study and later reference.  Are you on the edge of your seat yet?

Anyway, while working up some verbs today, I came across a verb that relates to an asana that we might call "the bane of the beginners", चतुरण्ग दण्डासन or caturaṇga daṇḍāsana.  That strange half push-up which forms such an important part of the 'vinyasa', despite its Sanskrit name has been shown to likely be derived not from some ancient text, but from 19th century Indian gymnastics, and was an innovation brought into the yoga world by the great Krishnamacharya (teacher of B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, among others), mostly as a way to get his young male students to work off their excess energy so they could sit for meditation.  Often called simply "caturaṇga", the full name caturaṇga daṇḍāsana means "4-legged stick or staff pose" wherein caturaṇga means 4-legged and daṇḍāsana means staff pose.  This comes from daṇḍa, meaning staff. 

Now the verb I mentioned earlier is दण्ड् or daṇḍ, meaning to punish.  दण्ड or daṇḍa is one of the noun forms of this verb, and is usually translated as stick.  Perhaps you see where I'm going with this.  This particular word for stick implies punishment, much like the connotations of the word "switch" in terms of a flexible branch used to discipline children.  I've heard stories from relatives of being made by their fathers to "go outside and fetch a switch" which is essentially the same as being made to aid and abet in one's own whipping.  Daṇḍa can essentially be translated as "the instrument of punishment."

Many are the struggles students have had to endure regarding this pose, whether due to an initial lack of upper body or core strength, a lack of bodily awareness, or in my case, just the horrors of relearning the pose correctly in teacher training (who knew the shoulder blades were supposed to squeeze together!?!).  It makes some people feel inadequate and others angry; its a pose few can claim to 'like'.  Towards that end, I'd like to offer a new translation for caturaṇga daṇḍāsana:

"Four-Legged Punishment Pose."

And certainly most serious yogis have had to pass through the stage of regarding it so.  But I also offer you hope, O ye who wouldst master the Mysteries of the Vinyasa, for by struggle (tapas) is the dross removed from the gold, and even the soul freed from its bondage in matter.  For if thou earnestly strengtheneth thy core, and if thou art mindful of  the working of thy thighs, nay even the deep muscles of the pelvic bowl as thou descendeth from Plank pose, and if thou tuckest thy tail bone, then shalt thou not only pass through the mysteries of the perfect caturaṇga daṇḍāsana, but thou shalt find much strength and sensitivity that thou mayest take unto all other asanas.  And so, by thy skill, thou shalt ascend even unto ūrdhva ḍhanurāsana, yea, even unto thy Upward Facing Dog.